This came out in 2002 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
When Gov’t Mule bassist Allen Woody died in 2000, he left some mighty large shoes to fill.
Accordingly, Allen’s surviving bandmates — guitarist Warren Haynes and drummer Mark Abts — get some mighty big names to fill ’em on the band’s first post-Allen recordings. For The Deep End, the duo recruited an all-star roster of illustrious thick-stringers — ’60s icons Jack Bruce and John Entwistle, post-punks Flea and Mike Watt, Deep Purple’s Roger Glover, funketeers Larry Graham and Bootsy Collins, jam masters Mike Gordon of Phish and Chris Wood of MMW, and so on — to help out on a hard-driving slate of southern-flavoured rock, blues and boogie excursions. Toss in vocals from Gregg Allman and Jerry Cantrell, along with guitar licks from John Scofield and Black Crowes’ sideman Audley Freed and you end up with a disc that points toward the Mule’s future while honouring its past.
